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Dec
8
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For most - access to the web is a far off prospect as it mainly includes a PC and a Web Browser. The way to get the web to more people (IMO) isn't through sub-$100 laptops and micro-browsers in PDA / Call Phones or set top boxes. I think we need to take the web to the people, not bring the people to the web. To do that - delivery of content has to be made way more consumer-oriented. Don't think Desktop or Webtop widgets - think Fridge Magnets, Art, picture frames, billboards, bathrooms. Imagine a Fridge Magnet that takes an Atom/RSS feed of the weather forecast, A bathroom mirror that displays my news feed and stock quotes, a picture frame that accesses my Flickr image stream. They don't have to be one way either - they need to interact to provide feedback. The technology is getting small enough and cheap enough and WiFi, Bluetooth, GSM are starting to cover the planet.
So, who's making the next gen. fridge magnet ?
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Jan
2
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Best Moment
That's a tough one - between England qualifying for the 2006 Word Cup, winning the ashes;) and watching my kids grow up - I'd have to go with my kids. Specifically - my 18 month old son Jack doing number ones on the potty (he's been doing it for a while for his Mum but did the honours for me over the Christmas break too) - you have to have kids to understand this one.
Worst Moment
The July bombings in London.
Best Blog
Just scanning through my subscriptions (in Google reader - reminder - must find a better blog reader) - I've decided that there isn't a single blog I read that religiously, however I have subscriptions to at least 8 Sun bloggers and read many others. So the award goes to to Sun bloggers - all of them.
Best Gadget
It was a good year for gadgets. By far my favourite was the personal fabricator I saw at Robo Nexus - but cost-wise it's a little out of my league. So for me it was the GlobalSat Bluetooth GPS receiver I bought in September - which I use from my Treo650 (running TomTom) - I've used it a great deal already (in 3 US states) both cycling, driving and walking. I look forward to some more location aware applications in the future.
Worst Gadget
I got a free WiFi detector freebee from some show (can't remember which). I just don't understand how these things are useful. If I know I really must be connected when I'm out of the office and away from home I go somewhere where they have an internet connection that I can use (Airport Lounge, Coffee Shop, Hotel, etc.) - I don't wander around the streets with my little Wi-Fi detector. For one thing it can't differentiate between a secure network, a P2P network and a freely accessible base station.
Best Book
This one is easy, despite having read (listened to) some really good books this year - it has to be Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (which I reviewed back in January 2005). As well as achieving an unprecedented 5 stars on my blog it also won a Hugo award and a clutch of others so it can't be all that bad.
Best Film
Pretty Tough - just scanning back through my Netlifx ratings - there were 3 or 4 films that I gave five stars but I think I'd have to go with the Bourne Supremecy (released in 2004).
Worst Film
Easy. Ocean's Twelve. I'm sure they enjoyed making it but it was almost painful to watch.
Best Talk
In December, I had the pleasure of listening to Michael Raynor (co author of the "Innovator's Solution" and all round smart, interesting guy) - great content and perfect delivery and as a bonus he only really used a couple of slides.
Best Application
This is tricky - Flickr started the year as the main contender but I've been a little bit disappointed with progress since the Yahoo acquisition (it hasn't gotten worse and I still think it's great but it hasn't really improved much either). So I think it's going to have to be Firefox (I'm currently on 1.5) - an application that I use every day, rarely encounter problems.
Biggest Disappointment
Sadly, I have to say it was the long awaited release of The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy (on DVD). It wasn't really a bad film and in some ways was probably a little better than the 80's TV series. I guess it was a reasonable film of one of the best stories ever so I guess that makes it above par. It'll be interesting to see if they adapt the other books in the series. NB. I'm more than a little tainted having grown up with Douglas Adam's work - listened to the radio show, read (all) the books several times, watched the TV series, played the game, etc.Have a great new year, Rich.
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Apr
24
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Many of my Artistic Flickerite Friends have been sporting cool transparent displays on their notebooks (mainly Macs) so I thought it was about time I got one for my Sony Vaio;
I thought I may as well upgrade my Palm Pilot as well :
In case you're wondering : 1. using a tripod take a picture of where the laptop will be; 2. crop the image as tight as possible to the screen size and set it as the desktop on the laptop; 3. using the same exposure take another photo(from the same place) of the laptop with the desktop showing - this is the hard bit - getting the desktop image to line up with the background.
A couple of hints - 1. use an SLR if you have one - the difference between the viewfinder and lens on a point-and-shoot will mess the image alignment up; 2. try and get a 'normal' depth of field - otherwise the perspective will make it hard lining the image up; 3. Try and shoot the screen straight on so you don't have to deal with perspective (maybe a few degress off if you are shooting with a flash)
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Dec
2
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There was an internal dicussion about posting photots to bloggs and someone mentionef that flickr can act as a relay between email and blog and could for example be used to send photos from a cell phone or PDA. So here begins my quick experiment - this was posted directly from flickrs web site using the meta web log API.
Next, I'll try posting directly from my cell phone.
